#Lawrence O'Donnell

[republikkkanorcs]

[tomorrowusa]

An excellent postmortem on the September 10th presidential debate.

Rachel Maddow led a panel discussion at MSNBC which began immediately after the debate concluded.

I was going to do a post with my own observations about the debate. However the MSNBC panel said what I wanted to say and they said it a whole lot better.

They said Trump "got destroyed". But the real destruction won't come until the votes are counted in the first week of November. So build on current good news rather than rest on it.

[epically-epic-epicosity]

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

🤣

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

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Pro Publica story on the death of Georgia woman denied emergency care for abortion related infection

A Georgia medical committee concluded that the death of a Georgia woman, Amber Nicole Thurman, was a preventable consequence of uncertainty caused by Georgia abortion laws that criminalize common procedures to treat miscarriages or complications of drug induced abortions. See Pro Publica, Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.

Given the time lag between the decision in Dobbs and the retrospective review of maternal deaths arising from anti-abortion laws, the Georgia report suggests that more cases of preventable maternal death due to abortion bans will soon emerge. As noted in the article, doctors are reluctant to provide treatment until a patient is near death.

Donald Trump takes full credit for the “Trump abortion bans” that are endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of women each year. We can reverse those bans with a national law codifying Roe v. Wade by electing Kamala Harris, defending the Senate, and flipping the House.

Like the disinformation regarding Kamala Harris’s polling, don’t let pundits tell you that Democrats are going to lose control of the Senate. The surest way for us to do so is to give up the fight early because we believe weaponized GOP polling. Stay strong! We have the momentum and we must drive it home to victory!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

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[razziecat]

Lawrence: Everything out of Trump's mouth is ‘real garbage’ and it shoul...

NO. PUNCHES. PULLED!

You gotta watch this one!!

[idealuk]

One of my mutuals just sent me this and it helped calm my nerves down so maybe it’ll help calm yours? 😁

https://www.tumblr.com/sevensoulmates/747691502777548800/httpswwwtumblrcomsevensoulmates7476889864479

Yeah, after reading that, I will reiterate that "Shameless (US)" Seasons 5 and 6 pissed me off so much that I didn't watch Season 7 until they said that Noel was coming back (and I was a Day-1 watcher like with this show). I watched, and I was mocked (every shipper was), so I stopped watching and let my critical, and viral, articles (so viral that I have it on good authority that the writers read them) about those seasons speak for themselves and didn't watch Season 8 until they announced the course reversal for Season 9. Fans like me, like what feels like every Buddie shipper, are who made them change course and give us exactly what we wanted in Seasons 9-11. This feels too much like one and not enough like the other to me.

John Wells is known as The Dragon of TV (just ask Emmy, Rob, or Lawrence why), and we made him kneel, Tim, other on the hand, has a whole neurosis thing about being canceled. I think that we'll get there eventually if this isn't it already and we don't just accept the first guy that consciously turns Buck's head like I see people doing, because, whilst I, too, like Tommy, he's not the destination, he's a turning point.

(via Stephen)

[dicapiito]

One of the only anchors with some common sense about the debate

[shakespearenews]

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday mocked Donald Trump’s search for a new lawyer, saying the former president has unwittingly found himself “in agreement” with famed British playwright William Shakespeare.

“Donald Trump doesn’t know that of course, because Donald Trump is the most ignorant, least educated man in the history of the American presidency, including all of those presidents who didn’t go to college and were self-educated,” said O’Donnell.

The “Last Word” anchor pointed to the legendary line from the Bard’s “Henry VI” in which character Dick The Butcher says, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

“In that play, Shakespeare was actually making the point that a cruel ruler cannot afford to have lawyers getting in his way. Shakespeare very much wanted his audience on the side of the lawyers,” noted O’Donnell.

Trump was now firmly “on the side of Dick The Butcher” as he appeared to give up on the legal team “who helped him get hit with an $83.3 million verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case last week,” O’Donnell said. Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he is “in the process […] of interviewing various law firms to represent me in an appeal,” O’Donnell added.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

BIDEN DRAGS REPUBLICANS LAUDING HIS ECONOMIC POLICIES THEY VOTED AGAINST

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell talks to President Biden's Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young who echoed the President after he went to Chicago to give a speech celebrating America's world-leading post-pandemic economic gains.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump's use of violent rhetoric for the past nine years is disturbing and has the potential to incite unbalanced and extremist elements in this country. But if he is using it to frighten us or coerce us into doing or not doing something, then we shouldn't take the bait.

We should not at all fear a Trump loss this year. While it won't solve all our problems, it would remove the greatest threat to American democracy since the 1940s from politics and throw what remains of the GOP into disarray.

While we should worry about the potential catastrophe of a second Trump administration, Donald Trump himself is not high on my list of people personally to be feared. He's an orange bag of pus with a big porcine mouth and bad hair. Birds would just poop on him if he were a scarecrow in the middle of a farm field.

Dictators and wannabe dictators are always making violent threats. For example: Vladimir Putin threatens to nuke us every 3 to 6 months. Putin somehow wants us to think that he's the only person in the world with nuclear weapons.

But caving to threats from autocrats almost always does more harm than good in the long run. If France and Britain had stood up to Hitler when he threatened Czechoslovakia in 1938, there may not have been World War II in 1939.

If we resolve to vote and don't get distracted by third party vanity candidates, Trump's political career will end later this year and his residency in a federal facility – other than the White House – will probably begin next year. Trump is trying to create fear in others because he's afraid of what will happen to him if he can't manage to hijack the 2024 election.

[epically-epic-epicosity]

Lawrence: 'Stupidest' candidate Trump did not answer reporters' questions

[singofsolace]

Taking a minor break from my Ted Lasso spiraling to mention:

I've been listening to the West Wing Weekly Podcast while I clean and do chores, to help my brain actually accomplish said chores, and about 15 minutes into the Two Cathedrals (Part One) episode, I was stopped in my tracks by the discussion I was hearing.

Lawrence O'Donnell is talking about how he basically got accidentally cast as Jed Bartlet's (physically abusive) father, after simply reading the role at the table read one day like he'd done for many guest parts before in his capacity as a producer. Then he says:

"At the end of the read through, the women in the cast start coming up to me--Allison Janney first, followed by Janel Moloney--and saying pretty much the same thing, which is 'Oh my god, that was really scary what you did.' And I didn't know what I had done, because my take on this, being from my kind of tough-guy Boston Irish neighborhood, was: this is the nicest dad I've ever seen. [Josh Malina and Hrishi Hirway, who are listening, laugh]. That's who I was playing...

"You know, first of all, he's this educated man and he only hit the kid once! That is unheard of in St. Brendan's parish, where I grew up. [...] In those days, you know, this was all before any books had been written about child-rearing, and nobody knew you weren't supposed to hit them--nobody knew that...

"So, that's the world I'm from, and so really, I mean it when I say to you, this guy read to me as a guy of real erudition and class and all that stuff, several classes above the class that I grew up in, and so the notion that he just gives the kid a wack in a moment was no big deal to me, and somewhere in that, of course, was the terror that Allison Janney and Janel were seeing. Like, 'oh my god, this guy doesn't even--he does it [hits the kid], and it's second nature to him, it's like nothing.'

"And the other part I didn't know, when Tommy Schlamme saw that, he leaned in to Aaron at the end of the episode and said: 'that's what I want in Bartlet's father.’ Now, he didn't mean me--the actor--not at all. That's just the performance [he wanted] and Aaron said 'yeah, that's what we need.'"

~~~

So I'm listening to Lawrence O'Donnell tell this story while I wash some dishes, and I'm just thinking... can you imagine being Allison or Janel at that table read, thinking it was an “acting choice” that he made, only to come to the sudden realization by talking to him that it wasn't a choice at all?? Like, how chilling is that?

At first I thought: Clearly, since Allison and Janel were so disturbed by his performance at the table read, and then more disturbed by the discovery that it was not his intention to disturb anyone, there was a major cultural shift that must’ve happened between O'Donnell's childhood and theirs, but then I looked it up, and Allison is only seven years younger than Lawrence O'Donnell. They grew up in practically the same time, and were raised by the same generation of parents!

And sure, you could argue that gender might be a major factor here, (that certainly seems to be what Lawrence is suggesting, at least), and that Allison and Lawrence were likely raised by two completely different "types" of parents, but still. Something about the casual way O'Donnell discusses specifically the women being scared by his performance makes my stomach a little queasy. Is he therefore saying none of the men in the cast were disturbed? None of them felt the same way as Allison and Janel? Or is he just highlighting the 'terror' in their reactions specifically because it...what...? Surprised him that the women would be scared by a physically abusive father being portrayed by one of their producers as "the nicest dad [he'd] ever seen"?

I'm not sure I'm effectively communicating my point, or even if I have a point, I'm just feeling a bit sick to my stomach, and wanted to write it all out. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Where things stand

On Thursday, President Biden took questions after the meeting of NATO leaders. Rather than having me describe the press conference, I will point to commentary and resources by others.

First, Lawrence O’Donnell provided extensive clips of the press conference. Watch O’Donnell’s 60-minute program, especially if your view of Joe Biden changed because of the debate. As of the publication time of this newsletter, I do not have a link to the Lawrence O’Donnell show. I will pin it to the top of the Comments section as soon as it becomes available. (Here is audio only: The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell - July 11 | Audio Only - YouTube. Still looking for video version.)

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[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

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Lucian Truscott Newsletter

See Talking Points Memo, Gut Checks and Decisions.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Josephine Harvey at HuffPost:

Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday evening analyzed why Donald Trump seemed to look right at him on his way out of criminal court earlier that day. Multiple journalists reported that the former president stared at the MSNBC host as he exited the Manhattan courtroom where his hush money trial is taking place.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman said Trump was “squinting strangely” at O’Donnell. MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld said Trump turned his head “directly” toward O’Donnell, glowered and muttered under his breath. “It seems Donald Trump wasn’t really pleased to see me,” O’Donnell, who was seated at the front of the gallery, told viewers on “The Last Word.” “I have my interpretation of what Donald Trump’s face and eyes were trying to say to me, and what drove him to create a final moment in the courtroom today that was worthy of New York Times reporting,” he added.

On the Thursday edition of his MSNBC show, Lawrence O’Donnell told the story that Donald Trump glared directly at him in the Trump Trial for election interference.

From the 05.02.2024 edition of MSNBC's The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell: